Text Satellite

[There are PLOT SPOILERS in this post: readers BEWARE!]

When I first began to consider which piece I wanted to use as my central text, I made a list; it was short:

• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
• Looking for Alaska - John Green
• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

"Monstros e Baloes"

Almost immediately, I decided to do The Hunger Games with its themes of dystopian societies, class warfare, and the like. It seemed like a solid, simple choice. I toyed around with orbital texts for a while, and upon speaking with Dr. Shannon I decided to change to change my main text to Looking for Alaska (which you can see the finished product here: Looking for Alaska ). I wanted more of a challenge and I wanted it to see where I could take it.

[Edit: I suppose I should tell you a bit about Looking for Alaska] Green's novel. So, Miles Halter, the main character, transfers to his father's old boarding school in the south. There he meets the rest of the characters of the book: Alaska, the Colonel, Takumi, and Lara. He and his new friends pull a variety of pranks while also attending classes. The entire novel is about growing up, life changes, love, learning, and overcoming loss. [Big Spoiler] At the end of the novel, Alaska disappears and is later found dead from a car accident. The reader is left to decide whether she killed herself or it was an accident. 

Now that I was set in my selection, I sat down to brainstorm a variety of orbital texts. I knew I wanted them to vary in genre as much as possible. It ended up taking me a solid hour to compile and revise my list of texts and then begin my Prezi. The Prezi took another 3.5 hours, at least. In the rest of this post, I will endeavor to justify why I chose a few of the pieces that I did. (WARNING: Some plot spoilers!)

Novel: The Giver by Lois Lowry

While an obvious choice for its heavy theme of loss of innocence, The Giver was one of my last minute additions. I simply did not think of it at first (and I'm sitting here typing this and wondering what else I may have forgotten). The protagonist of this novel grows up in the most sheltered, controlled life you can possibly imagine. The event in the plot that ignites his loss of innocence is when he becomes "the receiver" and is transferred all of the community's memories from "the giver". It is a crushing dose of reality for someone who didn't even know bad weather existed and only had one memory of feeling pain. I think that this novel would pair along side of Looking for Alaska beautifully.

"War and Peace"

Art/Image: "Monstros e Baloes"

This and "War and Peace" are two of my favorite sketches of all time. I think the themes that one could interpret from both of these images fit perfectly with the themes laid out in Looking for Alaska. Despite both of them being very simple in color and content, they are both incredibly dynamic. I believe that they would easily integrate into a unit with Looking for Alaska.